Hardeeville hired six new firefighters last month to help staff the city’s two existing stations until Fire Station 83 is built in Hilton Head Lakes North.

City Council expected the new station to be ready in January when it budgeted for the new firefighters last year, but the project was delayed until council approved a change order Jan. 22 that allowed construction to begin.

The change order involved importing dirt from the other side of Hilton Head Lakes because of unsuitable soil conditions at the construction site.

City manager Bob Nanni said the station should be finished in about six months. At that time, the fire department will use the additional manpower to staff the Hilton Head Lakes station.

“It was budgeted to hire them, so we went ahead and hired them,” Hardeeville Fire Chief Dan Morgan said of the new firefighters.

Several City Council members expressed confusion and distress at their Jan. 22 meeting about hiring the firefighters before the new station is ready. Before the change order, construction was expected to last from September to January.

“I was told the fire station would be built in January. We put six months of firefighters in the budget from January to June, but the fire station still hasn’t even been built yet,” council member Sal Arzillo said.

“So the city manager decided that we were going to hire the firefighters because it’s in the budget. His answer was ‘We’ll find something for them to do.’ I feel like it’s a waste of money. That money’s gone.”

Nanni said hiring and training the firefighters now will make the their jobs less complicated and stressful when the station is finished.

“If we brought firefighters in when the station was built, then you would have firefighters that would not know the system, who would probably not be certified and wouldn’t know the geographical area,” Nanni said. “Those are a number of things they’ll be doing while the station is under construction. They’ll learn the area and train.”

Training officer Clyde Thomas said three new firefighters will complete academy training March 14. The other three arrived with certifications and are already working.

“We’re spending a lot of time training them,” Morgan said. “They’ll be doing on-the-job training and protecting the lives and citizens of Hardeeville immediately.”

In June, council passed a budget that would fund Station 83 staffing and operations for six months.

The station will be about 6,000 square feet and will house six firefighters at a time. Two bays will be constructed for two fire trucks as well as a staff office, general area, public areas and restrooms.

Hardeeville finance director Chanel Lewis said the city received $180,000 in developer’s fees from Tradition (which later became Hilton Head Lakes) to cover the new firefighters’ salaries and other expenses for their first six months on the job. Traditions also supplied more than $300,000 for firefighter pay for the following year.

“We took the money Traditions gave us and added money from 30 other revenue sources to it so that it is now upwards of 300,000 dollars for future firefighter pay in reserve,” Lewis said.

The additional firefighters will also help prevent potential understaffing, Nanni said. The department employed 16 firefighters before the six new ones were hired.

“Sometimes our guys can’t even take a vacation because we have to take someone from another shift,” he said. “This will help our current firefighters.”

Morgan said three of the new firefighters live in the area and three came from out of state. He has not yet determined how their work will be divided among the city’s three stations once Station 83 is finished.

“I’m going to have to do some maneuvering of who works where in the future,” Morgan said. “It will be based on their experience levels.”